PRIVY COUNCIL

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 25, 30 January 1930, Page 22

PRIVY COUNCIL

IRISH FREE STATE

AWKWARD SITUATION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 28th Nov.

In the Houso of Commons yesterday Sir Kingslcy Wood asked tho Prime Minister whether it was tho intention of the Government to maintain tho terms of tho Irish Treaty and ensure that the position of tho Judicial Committco of the Privy Council aa tho Supremo Court of Appeal for tho Dominions, including tho Irish Freo State, should at all times bo fully safeguarded.

Mr. Mac Donald: "When so much of tho constitutional working of our Im perial machinery was altered in consequence of the resolutions passed by the Imperial Conference in ; 1926, tho Privy Council position was left over for consideration by the next Imperial Conference, and until that has met the position remains where it was." .

Sir Kingsley Wood: "Has the Prime Minister now made himself acquainted with tho observations of the Minister of Financo in tho Irish Freo Stato Parliament—(Socialist criqs of "Order!") —and has any communication been made by the Irish Freo State to the Government recontly.on the subject of the latter part of my question?" Mr. Mac Donald: "The Government has had no communication from the Irish Government on this matter. Such communication, and such communication alone, will receive my official attention." (Loud Socialist cheers.)

The Marquess of Hartington: "Is it not the case that unless and until the next Imperial Conference has made some alteration in the position as regards the Privy Council, the Treaty obligations of the Irish Free State remain as they were?"

Mr. Mac Donald: "That is so, and I havo never experienced, from tho Irish Free State any inclination to do anything except observe its honourable undertakings." (Cheers and derisive laughter.)

Lieut.-Colonel Howard-Bury: "Does not that statement conflict with Article 66 of tho Treaty?"

There waa no reply.

FULNESS OF NATIONAL STATUS.

The "Daily Telegraph" considers that the Prime Minister has said as much as, at the present juncture, can usofully be said on 'the Government's behalf. The journal continues:— "Thero is no doubt that an awkward situation has been created by the Free Stato Finance Minister's curt announcement that his Government refused to recognise the validity of a recent decision of the Judicial Committee in an appeal against a judgment of tho Free State Supremo Court. It is awkward, immediately and practically, because tho Committee's decision was to the effect that certain ex-Civil Servants were entitled to larger monetary compensation on retirement than had been awarded to them by the judgment in question. Tho Prime Minister, however, declines to discuss the matter until the attitude of the Free State Government has been officially communicated to him. When 'that happens, there may or may not be found a way of compromise out of a sufficiently grave constitutional difficulty. "Tho Free State Government, however, founds itself on the broad ground that the right of appeal to tho Privy Council should be done away with altogether. Tho fact must bo faced that in taking this line it will enjoy the full sympathy of other Dominions of the Crown, whatever may be thought of its action in this special case. With tho exception of tho French-speaking population of Canada, who will hear nothing of surrendering the right of appeal, the self-governing peoples of tho Empire are increasingly disposed to favour its abolition; and but for that exception tho Imperial Conference of 1926 would probably have recommended the ending of the system, instead of reserving tho point, as Mr. Mac Donald yesterday reminded the House, for further discussion at next year's Conference.

"This prevailing attitude is not so much one of lack of confidence in the Judicial Committee as of concern for the fulness of national status. The reputation of the Committee stands as high as that of any tribunal in existence But, as was declared in 1926, 'it is no part of the policy of His Majesty's Government in Great "Britain that questions affecting judicial appeals should be determined otherwise than in accordance with the wishes of tho part of the Empire primarily affected'; and the common sense of the matter was expressed not long ago by Lord Birkonhead, who, when questioned in Montreal on the subject of abolition of tho appeal, said- that he 'saw no reason why Great Britain should have the slightest hesitation in according to any such request.' "